Breaker strip and control assembly



F. B. ANDERSON BREAKER STRIP AND CONTROL ASSEMBLY Oct. 18, 1955 Filed Nov. 17, 1952 3 Sheets-Sheet l N 1N A 5 a N H 0 H I II III Q as " Arro/grs Oct. 18, 1955 F. B. ANDERSON BREAKER STRIP AND CONTROL ASSEMBLY 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Nov. 17, 1952 Oct. 18, 1955 F. B. ANDERSON BREAKER STRIP AND CONTROL ASSEMBLY 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 Filed Nov. 17, 1952 United States Patent Gfiice 2,728,758 Patented Oct. 18, 1955 BREAKER STRIP AND CONTROL ASSEMBLY Florence B. Anderson, Winnetka, 111., assignor to Motor Products Corporation, Detroit, Mich, a corporation of New York Application November 17, 1952, Serial lJo. 320,884

6 Claims. (Cl. 62--89) This invention relates generally to the art of refrigeration and refers more particularly to a refrigerator cabinet including a sub-assembly embodying a breaker strip having temperature regulating and/or defrost timer control units attached thereto.

It is an object of this invention to provide an attractive breaker strip and control assembly wherein the parts thereof are constructed and arranged to form a bench assembly capable of being readily installed on a refrigerator cabinet.

The foregoing as Well as other objects will be made more apparent as this description proceeds especially when considered in connection with the accompanying drawings, wherein:

Figure 1 is a front elevation of a refrigerator embodying the present invention and having the door for the access opening removed;

Figure 2 is a front elevational view of the combined breaker strip and control assembly embodied in the refrigerator cabinet shown in Figure 1;

Figure 3 is an enlarged cross sectional view taken substantially on the plane indicated by the line 33 of Figure 1;

Figure 4 is a fragmentary front elevational view of the breaker strip and control assembly and having certain parts removed for the sake of clearness;

Figure 5 is an exploded perspective view of the combined breaker strip and control assembly;

Figure 6 is a cross sectional view taken on the line 66 of Figure 1;

Figure 7 is a front elevational view of a modified form of escutcheon plate; and

Figure 8 is a rear elevational view of the construction shown in Figure 7.

In Figure l of the drawings the numeral 1% designates a refrigerator cabinet having an access opening 11 at the front and having a door (not shown) for closing the opening 11. In accordance with conventional practice, the refrigerator cabinet 1i; comprises an outer shell 12, a liner 13, and a breaker strip 14 surrounding the access opening 11 at the front side of the cabinet 10. The outer shell 12 has top, side and bottom walls fashioned at the front edges with laterally inwardly extending flanges 15.

portions of the liner walls are fashioned to provide flanges i 16 which extend laterally outwardly toward the flanges on the shell 12 and terminate short of the flanges 15.

The breaker strip 14 is formed of a heat insulating material and is of a nature to bridge the space between the flanges 15 on the shell 12 and the flanges 16 on the liner 13. As shown in Figure 3 of the drawings, the outer edge of the breaker strip 14 is fashioned with a forked part 17 that straddles the inner edge of the flange 15 and the inner edge of the breaker strip 14 is formed with spaced hook-shaped lugs 18. As shown in Figure 6 of the drawings the lugs 18 project through openings 19 formed in the flange 16 and are engageable with the marginal edges of the openings 19.

In the present instance the breaker strip 14 comprises a top section 21, side sections 22 and a bottom section 23. The extremities of the sections aforesaid are secured together to form in effect a continuous breaker strip around the access opening 11 in the front of the cabinet 10.

This invention is concerned primarily with the construction of the top breaker strip 21 and it will be noted from Figure 2 of the drawings that this section has an inverted U-shaped configuration. The arrangement is such that the breaker strip section 21 extends across the top and part way down each side of the access opening 11 in the front of the cabinet 16. Located centrally of the breaker strip section 21 is a relatively large opening 24 having a rearwardly extending marginal flange 25 and having integral projections 26 extending rearwardly from the marginal flange 25 in spaced relation to each other. The purpose of the projections 26 is to removably secure a sheet metal mounting plate 27 to the breaker strip section 21 at the rear side of the latter and this mounting plate is of sufiicient length to extend completely across the opening 24 through the breaker strip section 21.

As shown in Figure 5 of the drawings the mounting plate 27 has openings 28 therethrough for respectively receiving the projections 26 on the breaker strip section 21. The rear ends of the projections 26 extend beyond the mounting plate 27 and spring metal stud clips 29 are respectively secured to the rear extremities of the projections 26 to securely clamp the mounting plate 27 to the rear side of the breaker strip section 21. In the present instance, a pair of control units 39 and 31 are secured to the mounting plate 27 at the rear side of the latter. For the purpose of illustration the control unit 30 may be considered a temperature control and the unit 31 may be considered a defrost timer assembly. The units 30 and 31 may be of any suitable type capable of performing their respective operations and therefore need not be described in detail herein. Briefly, the unit 30 has an operating shaft 32 which extends in a forward direction therefrom through an opening 33 in the mounting plate 27. Also the unit 30 has attaching brackets 34 respectively positioned at opposite sides of the shaft 32 and clamped against the rear face of the mounting plate 27 by screws 35. The screws 35 extend rearwardly through clearance openings 36 in the mounting plate and are fastened to the brackets 34 by sheet metal speed nuts 37. The control unit 31 is positioned to one side of the control unit 30 and has an operating shaft 38 which projects forwardly through an opening 39 formed in the mounting plate 27. A pair of brackets 40 are respectively secured to the control unit 31 at opposite sides of the shaft 38 and are clamped against the rear face of the mounting plate 27 by screws 41. The screws 41 extend rearwardly through openings 42 in the mounting plate 27 and are threaded into openings 43 in the brackets 40.

The mounting plate 27 is concealed from view through the opening 24 by an escutcheon plate 44 which is preferably, although not necessarily, formed of moldable plastic material and is ribbed or otherwise decorated to provide a pleasing appearance. The escutcheon plate 44 overlies the front side of the breaker strip 21 in a position to completely conceal the opening 24 and is embossed in a rearward direction at longitudinally spaced points to provide circular recesses 45 and 46 in the front face of the escutcheon plate 44. The embossed portions of the escutcheon plate 44 project rearwardly through the opening 24 in the breaker strip section 21 and the circular recesses 45, 46 are respectively coaxially arranged with respect to the operating shafts 32 and 38 of the control units. The central portions of the bottom walls 47 of the recesses 45 and 46 are embossed in a forward direction to form spherically shaped surfaces 48. As shown in Figure 4 of the drawings, the embossed surfaces 48 and the annular part of the wall 47 surrounding the surfaces 48 have indicia applied thereto for the purpose of indicating the settings of the respective control units 30 and 31. 

